“The question is how do we get kids away from the mouse and out of the house? I’m trying to get rid of the ‘Mom, I’m bored,’ syndrome.”
Andy Milne CEO of andycamper.comAndy Milne wants to use the Internet to get kids into the great outdoors.
Milne, 36, is the founder and CEO of Andy Camper (andycamper.com), a site that just launched in August and hopes to make learning about nature fun and informative for kids ages 7 to 12.
A self-proclaimed “weekend warrior” who loves outdoor sports like kayaking, hiking and wakeboarding, Milne wants to pull kids away from computers and video games so they can appreciate nature as much as he does.
“The question is how do we get kids away from the mouse and out of the house? I’m trying to get rid of the ‘Mom, I’m bored,’ syndrome,” Milne said.
The Andy Camper site is entirely video-based and features informative clips with experts explaining different facets of nature and showing off a related activity that can be done outdoors. The activities are designed to be interactive and fun for a variety of learners, from kids who like to collect things to ones that like to show off their creativity. Milne says the emphasis is always on teaching fun things to kids that aren’t in textbooks.
“We’re trying not to make it curriculum-based. We want kids to have fun with the content so we’ve made it simple, accessible and fun,” Milne said.
The idea has taken Milne six years to come to fruition and all aspects of the site’s development, from building the website to hiring hosts for the web-clips to developing the videos, were funded by Milne himself. The main challenge, both in building the site and finding investors, has been to keep the site advertising-free.
“Parents won’t allow advertising, so we’ve had to come up with other interesting business models to make sure we maintain that relationship,” Milne said.
The choice to put Andy Camper online instead of making it into a TV show or book was obvious to Milne, given how many kids spend their time surfing the web.
“A lot of these kids are on the Internet, so we’re going to where they are,” Milne said.
The site is adding new content every week and Milne hopes to eventually let kids keep an online journal of their experiences with nature activities. The majority of videos and photos on the site are also posted on YouTube and Flickr and all videos are fully downloadable. Every clip has been shot in high-resolution HD, ensuring that Andy Camper’s content won’t have to be reshot as technology advances.
“We’re embracing any of the technologies that are accessible to kids. We’re trying to make a business out of this, but we want kids to have fun, too,” Milne said.
